I GOT IT!!!!!! And now I am in China, wandering around like an idiot :)
The next morning I met Joey, my China Fulbright travel buddy, at the embassy to pick up our visas. I literally jumped for joy when I got my visa!!! So much so, that I went next door and bought the kind Thai guards waters and bananas. They smiled so brightly when I delivered them, while deeply wai-ing them. I also brought the guard at my friend's apartment kanom. I am really a Thai person! That night, my friend Gracie met me for dinner at my friend Nicki's apartment, where I locked myself out and we had to call a lock smith. Somehow we double-locked the door, and it took him 45 minutes and 500 baht! Not my best day haha. But I am still in China!
Joey met me at Nicki's an hour before our flight. A friend, from my sorority at Cornell, who is currently in China told me to download a VPN (Virtual Private Network) hosted by PandaPow if I want to be able to use Wikipedia, Google, Gmail, etc. I think it's actually quite scary that China's 1.3 BILLION people don't have access to this uncensored information. We are so lucky in America.
At Don Mueang Airport, I looked pretty goofy. I had my backpackers backpack (which makes anyone look stupid), as well as my American socks and sneakers, and a giant blue-gray coat that Mahh Lahng bought for me second hand. I think that it looks like a homeless person coat. But hey, China can be cold! I also had my camera out and took pictures of mundane things (Again, I really am Thai!) I stopped at the fancy perfume shops to spritz perfume samples all over me and my backpack. It probably was going to be the last time I would smell nice for a while.
The flight was an easy three hours, and I was seated next to an older man who sold jade for a living. He spoke fluent Chinese, Thai, English, and Burmese. At the airport there were so many police, and they wouldn't let me take pictures! "China no fun!" We also arrived at the airport around 11:10pm. This was when problems started. Joey and I went to the counter inside the airport that said "TAXI"- we already had booked a hotel reservation. The people at the counter told us 300 Yuan (there are about 6Y/ $1) so this 10km. would cost us close to $60!!! Outrageous. We told her we would go outside and check. She told us that a metered taxi would be the same. On the walk outside another man haggled us with "taxi!" He wanted 350!!! So ridiculous. The buses were mainly stopped, but when a kind bus driver helped us (the only person we found who spoke any English) he literally laughed out loud when we said "300 Yuan." A police officer ended up putting us in a metered taxi. Good and fair right? Wrong. At the end of the journey, our meter said 44.7 Y. I handed him a 100 (the only bills I had from the ATM at the airport) and he refused to give me change. He also didn't speak any English. Joey got out of the cab to go check in at the hotel and it was just me. I literally argued on the street with this man for half an hour. First he handed me someone else's receipt from the side of his car that said "123 Y." Then when I pointed to the 44.7 he said that that was the number of "kilometers!" we drove (which I knew for a fact wasn't true because he plugged the hotel address into his GPS and I'd watched it the whole time. I left my bag in the backseat with one foot in the door and just kept yelling at him "You steal!!! Steal!!!" Another Chinese person came over, I thought to help, but then just watched. There was also a woman who spoke a tiny bit of English that was just laughing. It was horrible. Little by little he handed me one 10 back, and then another 5 minutes another 10 back, and so on. It was madness. At one point he motioned for me to get out of his cab and I told him "No, I want my change" (holding out my hand). When I tried to reach into his shirt pocket, with my 100, he got angry (dumb now that I look back on it, but I was really pissed off). I settled for 40 back, he kept 60. Still bs, but I at least ate up half an hour of his time. Since that experience, I have avoided taxis at all costs. I also have plenty of small bills :) But WOW what a "Welcome to China!" right?!
Our hotel turned out to be really nice, although a bit smokey. One character was wrong on the address, so Joey and I, along with another Chinese couple each had the same problem (we were driven to the wrong hotel). I had initially seen the "Xin Hua Hotel" when we passed it on our drive...frustrating! The next day (yesterday!) Joey and I had to take a bus from our hotel to the city center, to get a train headed to Guilin. Even leaving the hotel was painful with no English. When a packed bus pulled up on the side of the road, we entered through the back (not knowing where to get on). No woman or man collecting money came around, so we figured we'd pay when we got off. (Even actions as simple as getting on and off of a bus were hard!) While we were jammed into the bus- the only two Western foreigners in sight, and getting crushed by the doors opening and closing, two really nice Chinese college students told us where and how to pay. They also asked us where we were going, and told us that they would happily take us on the train, and to the train station (buying the train ticket was entirely in Chinese...) As we exited the bus, another Chinese girl came up to Joey and I (well, our Chinese friends because no English) and told us that she had paid our bus fare because we were in the back of the bus. She ran off too quickly for us to pay her back. Very kind. I've had such extreme experiences on both spectrums here; really interesting mix of terrible and wonderful.
After our friends, named Icy and Juje, dropped us off at McDonald's (make all the jokes you want), Joey and I had our first Chinese public bathroom experience. We each had to pay 1 Yuan to use the most foul smelling squat toilet bathroom ever....outside of McDonald's! (First McDonald's I've been to with no bathroom!) It was so nasty. With our train tickets in hand, we waited at a large plaza and people watched. Men and women were selling water bottles, steamed corn, and my favorite- buckets (giant beach buckets) of fried chicken. The men selling the buckets of chicken would run for their dear lives when a policeman would stroll along. About 10 seconds later you would see the policeman chasing about 5 people lugging their buckets of chicken (all sprinting)! When Joey or I would ask a police officer a question, they cannot be bothered. Hmph.
Our 12 hour overnight train ride to the city of Guilin was wonderful. Joey and I had to pay a bit more because the mid-class sleeper cars were sold out, but we got a very hi-so cabin with four very fancy long beds, a comforter and two pillows! We locked our backpacks together because one of our friend's backpacks was stolen from an overnight train. The train was really, really fun, and I was happy to be out of Guangzhou haha.
One of the first sights I spotted in Guilin was a 4 year old girl walking around with her mother, only wearing her underpants. Joey and I stopped in the lobby of a hotel to get some wifi, and then continued on quite a long walk to find a bookstore with an English "China" book, or a phrase book. While we were miming to the salesman, yet another very kind English student approached us and offered to help us. Her name was Sunny. She took us from bookstore to bookstore (where "College Entrance Exam" books crowded the shelves- so different from Thailand!), and then we ate lots of street food together. Then she insisted on treating us to noodles. The noodle shop was around a small alley, and was not the cleanest place I've ever seen. The noodles were "slurpy" and white, and served with some spices, scallions, and soybeans over them. Then you dipped the whole pot of noodles under water for a few seconds. Really interesting! I enjoyed mine until I saw a man across from us plug one of his nostrils and blow a booger onto the ground. Then I gave my noodles to Joey. I almost was also spit on today. By both a man and a woman. Nasty!!!
Sunny helped us take a bus to a different bus station, where we then caught 2 more buses to the famous, beautiful Longji Rice Terraces. The drive was beautiful, and we went all the way up windy roads into the mountains. It's cold and misty up here! When we got off of the bus, there were tons of wooden draw bridges crossing streams, women wearing silver hoop earrings and traditional black head bandages. There were donkeys and people carrying woven baskets on their backs with babies in them! So different than Thai hilltribes, and so so cool. I feel like I am in another world! Joey and I dropped our packs off at our hostel...the cutest, coziest little cabin at the top of one of the rice terraces. We then ate a delicious traditional Chinese dinner (cooked fish and green peppers and some sweet and sour pork!) and went to our room for some much needed journaling time :) We concluded that the reason that Facebook must be outlawed in China is because the government is afraid of its power and influence to organize; in other words, the government cannot control Facebook. Therefore, it is banned (yikes).
I am currently listening to the calming scream of donkeys as I curl up under my comforter, in a fleece(!), high up in the Longji terraced mountains of China :)
The Airport: Where scissors go to die.
Joey voting absentee at the airport in Bangkok
Emily was snap happy!
I made Joey take some pictures of me too hehe
Posters we wish we understood
Joey with sign in Chinese!
And English! (Body temperature exam is in process?! Yikes!)
Before I was told I couldn't take pictures
(I still took them. I like to play the "Dumb farang" card)
Cool Chinese fish at our hotel
Badass gold chair. A Chinese one!
Lots of people
Icy, right and Juje in front of McDonald's with me!
Train Station: In Chinese and with huge lines...anxiety
My favorite shot of Joey. He bought some street bread.
My favorite! Bucket o' chicken!
We took this picture so that we could show it to a
Chinese person if we had a bathroom emergency!
Rain in Guangzhou, and a fake 7/11.
Do you spy the bananas that are twins?
Vendors selling water on the plaza
Bucket chicken!
So much bucket chicken
Joey and I sat here and took a nap for an hour
Bucket chicken.
Noodles! Delicious 10 Yuan noodles with carrots and lettuce
and sprouts for dinner! When in Rome...
Strangers. Adorable little boy strangers.
The "lo-so" sleeper cars on the train: 6 beds/ cabin
So cool!
Joey and my hi-so sleeper cabin!
I LOVE sleeping like this on a train!
Welcome to Guilin! Do you spy Joey trying to cross the
street with all of the Chinese people? (When everyone was
waiting to cross and he was a foot taller and blonde with
his backpack...now that would have been a classic shot!)
Downtown Guilin, China
My new friend Sunny!
She wanted some pictures too.
Joey buying a Chinese phrase book!
Eating some Chinese tofu street food :)
Eating some Chinese rice balls
Some grilled street pork
Mmmm...
My rice ball had some bean spread, and a crunchy cracker in it!
It was like a rice sandwich!
Joey buying some oranges
Cat on a bike! Cat on a bike!
Close up.
Me eating noodles in China!
Me and Sunny!
Joey and Sunny!
This is a good one
Joey is on the left sitting and showing Sunny our hotel's
address. Everyone else is just curious to know what is going on.
(Way #1 you can tell they don't get many tourists here haha)
Fruit cart!
(The dried fruit at the front, we don't know!)
Joey sitting alone at the back of a Chinese public bus!
This is a happy place to end. Joey and I are going on an intense 6 hour
hike tomorrow through the Longji Rice Terraces! Expect great pics to come!!
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